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French pro Audrey Cordon-Ragot suffers stroke

The 32-year-old Trek-Segafredo rider revealed that she is due to undergo an operation after falling ill last Sunday, a week after finishing second overall and winning a stage at the Simac Ladies Tour

French national road race and time trial champion Audrey Cordon-Ragot, who raced in the first edition of the revamped Tour de France Femmes in July, suffered a stroke last weekend.

The 32-year-old Trek-Segafredo rider revealed the news in a social media post today, writing that she requires an operation to address the heart condition behind last Sunday’s stroke – which occurred just a week after she finished second overall and won a stage of the Simac Ladies Tour in the Netherlands.

Earlier this week Cordon-Ragot dropped out of France’s elite women’s squad for the upcoming UCI road world championships simply citing medical reasons, but she has now confirmed that she was diagnosed after an MRI scan confirmed the fears of the French team’s medical staff.

“Life always has surprises in store for you and this week more than ever, I learned that it is far more important than anything else,” she posted on Instagram and Twitter.

“My non-presence at the next world championships, which many people claimed was down to a whim, fear of losing, lack of respect for the French team... and so on, is due to a stroke, of which I was a victim last Sunday.

“Not detected right away, I was lucky (yes, I say lucky) to be surrounded by medical staff (thank you Gwenaëlle Madouas, Maryline Salvetat and Mathieu Le Strat) who strongly advised me to carry out an MRI which surely saved my life.”

She continued: “Difficult to explain how I feel, I am exhausted, drained, sad, but at the same time so grateful and happy to have been able to return home to my loved ones.

“My season is therefore over, as you can guess (some will say that I am a crier and a sissy, for all these people refrain from commenting!).

“I will observe a period of rest and undergo an operation to resolve the cardiac problem at the origin of my accident.

“The moral of the story is that I understood how much I loved my family, my life, more than anything and that I would not let anything or anyone take away the privilege of enjoying it 200 percent.

“Thank you to all the people who asked about me, who surrounded me: my family, my friends, the French Cycling Federation, my team and the nursing staff of the Centre Hospitalier du Centre Bretagne.”

The 32-year-old then signed off with a quote from French philanthropist Anne Barratin: “Vigoureusement aimer, c’est vigoureusement vivre” (To love vigorously is to live vigorously’).

Audrey Cordon-Ragot, stage four, 2022 Tour de France Femmes (Zac Williams/SWpix.com)

Cordon-Ragot racing across the gravel in the French national colours at the 2022 Tour de France Femmes (Zac Williams/SWpix.com)

Before last weekend’s health scare, 2022 was arguably the most successful season of Cordon-Ragot’s 15-year professional career. In June, she won her sixth French time trial title and second national road race title, which saw her wear the famous Tricolore jersey at the following month’s inaugural Tour de France Femmes.

In early August, she beat British rider Pfeiffer Georgi to win the Postnord Vårgårda WestSweden, before taking the time trial stage and finishing second overall behind Lorena Wiebes at the Simac Ladies Tour two weeks ago.

> Astana Continental team rider Yerlan Pernebekov dies of stroke at age of 19 

Stokes are thankfully rare among professional cyclists but have happened in the past. In 2014, Yerlan Pernebekov, a former Asian junior road champion and member of Astana’s UCI Continental development squad, died after suffering a stroke at the age of 19.

Pernebekov, who was attending the Continental team’s training camp in Ecuador, began suffering from a headache and was taken to hospital straight away.

He was later diagnosed to have suffered a stroke as a result of a burst blood vessel, with medical staff placing him in an induced coma.

“Unfortunately and in spite of every effort by doctors and medical staff, Yerlan could not be saved,” Astana said at the time.

Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.

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5 comments

Avatar
wtjs | 1 year ago
1 like

Yep! He's dysfunctional all right. The Trump-Type Anti-Truth agenda is strong on the Dark Side. You wonder what twisted malevolence begets this intention to push untruths designed to harm people!

Avatar
wtjs | 1 year ago
3 likes

Oh dear! The Anti-Vaxxers are still around.

Avatar
ChrisB200SX replied to wtjs | 1 year ago
1 like
wtjs wrote:

Oh dear! The Anti-Vaxxers are still around.

Unfortunately, you cannot vaccinate against stupidity.
Bring back Polio!

Avatar
chrisonabike replied to ChrisB200SX | 1 year ago
2 likes

I think you'd have to go back further than that for the full analogy.

Avatar
Awavey | 1 year ago
4 likes

Courage à toi et repose toi bien Audrey.
 

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